I just read through this whole thread and I think people forget in the age of twitter and cons that the creative team (actors, writers, showrunners, producers, etc) of a show, movie, or any work of art really don't owe us anything. People say all the time "The fans are the reason for their career so they owe us appreciation" but that's flawed logic. This is their job, not their hobby. If you work in a restaurant as a chef, and you have regulars who love your food and come buy it every day, are you in debt to those people? Do you owe something to them? Could someone suggest you should take time out of your life on your days off or free time to go meet with them and talk to them about your food? If you didn't, would you be considered ungrateful for their love of your food and their contribution to your career? Of course not! After all, chef is your job, but on your off days, you're not working. If one of your loyal regulars was to come up to you on the street and demand you talk to them about your food and get really excited and you were just kind of like ".. Yeah, it's good. Thank you for appreciating it" and trying to wave them off, would you be a bitch or ungrateful or rude or mean or disrespectful? No. You'd be a human who doesn't want their work to define their life when they're not working. Which is exactly this.
I don't blame Sarah for wanting to move on after a period of time. James has said multiple times that the people in the business called Buffy "Buffy the Weekend Slayer" because of how much work it was. I keep flashing to when James and Charisma were on Supernatural and there was a Supernatural convention in Vancouver that week, and during Jared and Jensen's breakfast panel that morning, someone mentioned Buffy and that James and Charisma were on set and Jensen got all wide eyed and full of admiration and told everyone about how they used to call Buffy "Buffy the Weekend Slayer" because they worked so long and hard. Turns out James, Charisma, and the shared crew were talking about how hard working on Buffy was and just congratulating each other on doing that for so long.
Also, her age is a factor here. She was 18. What 18 year old enjoys doing one thing for so long? I mean, I'm 21 and I bounce around from thing to thing... I can't imagine working on one thing that is as all consuming as Buffy was for 7 years at this stage in my life.
Jumping back a step... I just feel I really should say more about cons... My main fandom at the moment is Supernatural. There are more Supernatural cons than like anything else. And I've seen my main fandom get super bratty about these cons. I have seem them suggest an actor owes us time away from his newborn child to go to a convention. I have seen them suggest an actor owes us an answer to a poorly and sloppily worded question about a non-canon ship that is in agreement with that ship 110%. I have seen them suggest an actor owes us a show every week and a convention every weekend while raising two children. I have seen them suggest that actor owes us not being exhausted while doing it... or at least not showing it. I have seen them suggest actors owe us so many things revolving these conventions, and I just... I often feel we should all take a step back and recognize they don't even owe us doing them. They don't owe us twitter. They don't owe us an official facebook. They don't owe us their free time or their personal lives.
The people in this thread who have been claiming Sarah owes us, as Buffy fans, something more than she's given remind me of those bratty Supernatural fans who are never pleased with a cast that gives more than 100%. Because there's a principle there... As humans, we are not owed anything from another human they do not want to give. We are not owed Sarah's personal life. We are not owed her time. We are not owed her life. We gave her years on a show that was beautiful and wonderful. And in return, she gave us the art that has helped us, saved us, and shaped our lives. That gift that she's given us, the show, the character... that's the only gift that matters. She doesn't owe us anything, because she's already given us everything. We watch and talk about it... but she made it. She spent years waking up after hardly any sleep to eat, drink, live, and breathe Buffy. She worked 18+ hour days. Do you know what that means? That means she'd get to work at 8 AM and wouldn't leave until 2 AM or later. That means 6 hours of the day were not spent at work. And they were probably all spent sleeping. She did that for 7 years, for us. And you are telling me she's ungrateful because she doesn't want to spend more of her life engrossed in this project? I mean, if you can look at all of that work, all of that time, and all of that effort and say she owes you more, who's really ungrateful here?
